Providing for mobility of handicapped adults requires not only development of equipment and devices which will allow independent operations of private vehicles, but development of adequate restraint systems to protect these handicapped drivers and occupants in vehicle collisions. Until recently, little concern and effort has been devoted to the latter area. As a result, handicapped individuals fortunate enough to have found a means for operating a vehicle are, in most cases, completely unprotected in the event of a crash.
While designing for impact protection of able-bodied vehicle occupants is a complex and difficult engineering problem, designing for the protection of handicapped individuals, with their special equipment and assisting devices as well as strength and mobility limitations, presents additional problems in crashworthiness design.
The conventional wheelchair in use today has not been designed with vehicle transportation and crashworthiness criteria as a primary concern. Consequently, its structural members cannot, in general, be relied upon to hold up under the large inertial forces required to restrain both the wheelchair and its occupant under vehicle crash decelerations. Yet for the wheelchair bound person, who has limited strength and mobility, it is advantageous to provide occupant restraint anchorage points on the wheelchair itself. It is also important for the person who wants to operate a vehicle from his wheelchair without assistance, to have a restraint system which is actuated automatically by the simple action of a switch.